Compare two dates with JavaScript

Question

Can someone suggest a way to compare the values of two dates greater than, less than, and not in the past using JavaScript? The values will be coming from text boxes.

Answer 1

 The Date object will do what you want - construct one for each date, then compare them using the >, <, <= or >=.

The ==, !=, ===, and !== operators require you to use date.getTime() as in

var d1 = new Date(); 
var d2 = new Date(d1); 
var same = d1.getTime() === d2.getTime(); 
var notSame = d1.getTime() !== d2.getTime();

to be clear just checking for equality directly with the date objects won't work

var d1 = new Date(); 
var d2 = new Date(d1); 

console.log(d1 == d2); // prints false (wrong!) 
console.log(d1 === d2); // prints false (wrong!) 
console.log(d1 != d2); // prints true (wrong!) 
console.log(d1 !== d2); // prints true (wrong!) 
console.log(d1.getTime() === d2.getTime()); // prints true (correct)

I suggest you use drop-downs or some similar constrained form of date entry rather than text boxes, though, lest you find yourself in input validation hell.